Filner’s legal but shameful scam

In recent weeks, Democratic mayoral candidate Bob Filner has picked a fight with Republican opponent Carl DeMaio that Filner should regret. The veteran congressman has knocked DeMaio for only releasing five years of personal tax returns while refusing to release any of his own, supposedly to protect the financial privacy of his ex-wife. But Filner says if DeMaio will release more tax returns involving businesses he sold and those of his partner, Johnathan Hale, then he’ll release his. What about his ex-wife’s privacy? That would somehow then become a nonissue.

As we’ve already noted in this space, this is abject hypocrisy – as well as amazingly twisted logic. But Filner’s real error is in spurring renewed interest in his and his ex-wife’s finances – because what is known is extremely distasteful.

We refer to the legal but odious practice of federal lawmakers paying relatives a cut of the money they raise for their “help” with fundraising. From 1994 to 2009, Filner paid his then-wife more than $620,000 for her work, in the congressman’s words, as a “self-employed consultant” operating a business out of their Washington condominium. According to a 2005 U-T report, Bob Filner was Jane Filner’s only client. At the time, her purported business wasn’t even registered with D.C. officials, as officials said was a requirement.

The business the former Mrs. Filner ran consisted of establishing a legal way for people who wanted the congressman’s support on an issue to pay him for his support. Anyone who knew that his then-wife got a big chunk of a campaign donation for use in the family budget would understand this dynamic.

What makes this even more appalling is that Filner mounted big fundraising campaigns even when he faced token election challenges, ensuring his family bank account would benefit. In 2002, for example, after winning while running in a gerrymandered district that ensured he would easily defeat his little-known, poorly funded Republican opponent, Filner gave his then-wife’s “consulting firm” a $91,200 fee. As we observed a few years back, if you really believe she raked in that loot because she was so invaluable to Filner’s campaign, we’ve got some developable swampland you may be interested in.

Just because this is legal doesn’t mean it isn’t repugnant, and most members of Congress understand this. According to a 2007 report, only about 10 percent of Senate and House members over the previous six years had paid family members with campaign money. The great majority understood that so openly cashing in on their influence was amoral – or at least realized that it looked bad.

But not Bob Filner, who has never apologized for his tawdry exploitation of public office – or even acknowledged that it looked bad.

Given this context, Filner’s attempts to raise suspicion about DeMaio’s finances are all the more off-kilter – because what’s already in the public record about Filner’s finances is a pathetic commentary on his ethics. Conveying $620,000 of campaign cash to family bank accounts isn’t a civic misdemeanor. It’s an assault on the public interest.